Interview with Suspense Author Linwood Barclay

Joining us today is Linwood Barclay. Linwood is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye, a #1 bestseller in Britain. Fear the Worst was recently released by Bantam Books. We´ll talk to Linwood about his writing and about this latest suspense novel.

Welcome Linwood. We´re thrilled to have you with us. Can you please tell our readers a bit about yourself?

I was born in the U.S. but moved to Canada when I was only four years old. My father was offered a job in Toronto, and he took it. I started in newspapers at age 22, and at 26 joined the Toronto Star, Canada´s largest newspaper, where I worked in a variety of editing positions before becoming the humor columnist in 1993. I did four non-fiction books with Canadian publishers between 1996 and 2000, and my first novel, Bad Move, came out in 2004. No Time for Goodbye (2007) was the book that really changed things for me. It´s been sold around the world, and in 2008 was the bestselling novel in the UK.

When and where did your writing career begin?

The Peterborough Examiner, a daily newspaper in Ontario, about seventy miles northeast of Toronto. I was the "district" reporter, covering anything that happened outside the city. I was from the area and had a car, so I was considered perfect for the job. I got to cover everything from township council meetings to fast-breaking prize-winning calf stories.

Did your past as a newspaper columnist help you make the transition to fiction author?

It taught me that writing is a job, and that deadlines mean something. You have a project to do, and you get it done. There´s no time for this "I´m an artist and I´m not in the mood today" attitude.

What can you tell us about Fear the Worst?

Fear the Worst is about a father whose 17-year-old daughter comes to live with him for the summer while she works at a one-star hotel. One night, she doesn´t come home and the father goes to the hotel, for the first time, to find out what´s happened to her. The hotel workers have not only not seen her, they´ve NEVER seen her. So where has she been going these last few weeks? Where is she now? And why are some very bad people looking for her?

Where did you find the inspiration for this story?

I was making my own daughter breakfast, getting ready to drive her to her retail job at the time, and said, "Got an idea for a book?" She said something like, "Suppose you came to pick me up at work and I wasn´t there." And then I said, "What if you´d never been there?"

Tell us about Tim Blake. Why will readers like him? Why will they sympathize with him?

I think readers will like him because he´s just a regular guy. He sells cars. His ex-wife has a new boyfriend and Tim can´t stand him. He´s got problems connecting with his daughter. He´s got the kinds of problems many of us can identify with. We can picture ourselves in his shoes. So when things start to go very wrong with him, we can imagine these things happening to ourselves.

Where is this book set and why did you choose this particular setting for your novel?

Like No Time for Goodbye, this novel is set in Milford, CT. I´ve never lived in Milford, but I used to go down there every year to visit my aunt, before she passed away, and it seemed a perfect place to set the book. Milford´s a nice, typical, American kind of town, the perfect place to set a book about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

Where can readers purchase a copy of Fear the Worst?

I would hope just about any place where books are sold.

Do you have a website or blog?

www.linwoodbarclay.com is my website. I don´t blog. I think asking people to read a book a year from me is already expecting a lot.

What is up next for you?

Never Look Away will be out next spring.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I just want to thank everyone who picks up one of my books. There are already a lot of very talented people out there doing what I do, so I´m most grateful when someone makes the decision to read one of my novels.

Thank you for sharing your work with us today. I wish you all the best.